UIC’s annual Spark festival is coming up this Friday! Spark will be held this year in Granderson Field, doors open at 2:30. Tix are $10 for UIC students, $25 for staff and alumni, and $45 for non UIC guests. Ticket prices will go up at the door so buy them now!

This year Spark is proud to announce we will be having our first ever female headliner!

H.E.R. (Having Everything Revealed) is a 21-year-old contemporary R&B artist, who surfaced into the music scene in 2016. H.E.R. offers both a vulnerable and assured sound through the production and writing in her music. The California native artist has collaborated with other prominent musicians such as Daniel Caesar, Khalid, and Bryson Tiller.

Spark is also excited to give a festival experience to attendees this year. We will be having multiple acts, great food options, face painting stations, out door games and more! Come find out for yourself!

Wanna get familiar with all the Spark artists before the show? Check out this playlist!

After the bombing that took the lives of 22 people at Ariana Grande’sDangerous Woman concert in Manchester, one can imagine the amount of tears and pain that has come from Grande and her team. Now almost a year later, Grande is back with rainbow prisms, upside down aesthetics, and the liberation of moving forward with No Tears Left To Cry (NTLTC), her first single since the tragedy.

Fans were speculating to hear a mournful ballad after listening to the teaser of NTLTC that was posted onto Grande’s social media before its release. However, after hearing the full track, it is clear that Grande is over the tears and is moving on to a state of optimism and happiness. “Ain’t got no tears left to cry / so I’m pickin’ it up, pickin’ it up / I’m lovin’, I’m livin’, I’m pickin’ it up” the 24-year-old sings.

Ivan from Noteworthy here again (Mondays 6PM-8PM). I refuse to believe it, but the calendar doesn’t lie: we’re already 1/4 of the way in to 2018. My internal musical clock is usually stuck on trying to discover stuff that slipped through the cracks from the previous year for the first few months and it really isn’t until spring that I turn my mind on for the current year. While past 1st quarters might have been the dead zone between the holiday rush to get music to consumers and the spring, where the seeds for summer dominance are planted, we’re now in a year-round culture our need for quality content never goes on hiatus.

As we leave March, I feel great about what 2018 has offered us so far, so I’ve decided to count down my ten favorite singles from the 1st quarter. If you’ve been listening to Noteworthy, some of these songs here won’t surprise you. Side note: I included some December 2017 tracks here since songs and albums released that late in the year can only have so much impact if they’re limited to a time frame of just a few weeks.

#10. N*E*R*D feat. Kendrick Lamar – “Don’t Don’t Do It”

The melody here is one of those classic, gliding Neptunes chord progressions that have made me a stan for nearly two decades. Not sure if it’s because it feels so familiar, the topicality of it, the addition of Kendrick Lamar or a combo of all three that’s kept me coming back.

As of recent, I have been seeing many individuals complain about Hip-Hop and how it is in a very bad state currently. As the genre continues to get bigger, of course there will a lack of diversity in most popular songs and can be easily shown by just looking at the Billboard Hot 100.

We all should know by now that award shows are absolute garbage. Something that should be held to recognize achievements and events within the music industry as a whole, ends up only going to the top precenters and completely disregards underground and/or independent artists. And not to mention, a large amount of the people behind the scenes of these shows are either racist or sexist. Or both.

Frank Ocean showed his disapproval of award shows when he chose to abstain from the 2017 Grammy Award Show. Ocean said, “I think the infrastructure of the awarding system and the nomination system and screening system is dated. I’d rather this be my Colin Kaepernick moment for the Grammys than sit there in the audience.”

And I completely agree with his statement and the action he chose to make.

But even though I already know that award shows are a joke, I still couldn’t help but to be irked when the American Music Awards revealed their nominations today and presented a disappointing amount of female nominees.

Not a single female artist was nominated for the following categories:

Artist of the Year

Collab of the Year

Best Duo / Group

Best Pop Album

Tour of the Year

Video of the Year

There are so many incredible female artists, in the mainstream and underground music scene, who have been delivering an abundance of talent this year, but are going unrecognized. The lack of appreciation for these ladies in the simplest term is: frustrating.

Confident women expressing themselves is empowering and is something we need to pay more attention to.

With that being said, here are some female musicians I think everyone should check and support, because they truly deserve it:

Blogging season is back and I have album reviews and musical opinions ready to go, but to kick things off, here is a little summary of how my life has been going since my last post:

This week I’ve cried to ‘Supercut’ by Lorde approximately 68 times. I’ve drafted up several different blog posts, re-read them, and then deleted them out of fear of sounding mindless and shallow. I’ve had zero will to do the things I’m supposed to be doing, and instead have been hoarding bottles of Smirnoff in my room.

This past week I’ve embarrassed myself on at least 16 different occasions, one of them being right in front of Nick Jonas. I am going to snap my neck if one more person comments on how “edgy” my new haircut looks. I despise the word, “edgy” with a passion and being, “edgy” was not what drove me to cut off 12 inches of my hair, but in fact was just the aftermath of a full-blown Britney Spears styled mental breakdown, which I am still having. Evidently.

I out of impulse booked an appointment to get another tattoo (which I really can’t afford). I also booked plane tickets to go back to California (which I also, really can’t afford).

Ever since I went to California this summer, I’ve been extremely frustrated every morning when I wake up and realize that I am no longer in California. I whole heartily believe that is where I should be, and not in the Midwest, causing me to have even more of an existential crisis.

I’m on the verge of dropping every single one of my classes, I busted my iPhone, and I finished watching every season of “It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia,” on Netflix and now I don’t know what to do.

And that’s been a brief summary of my life since my last blog post.

Though I sound like a total pessimist, I promise I am not. I’m living in a “glass is half empty, half full” kind of world right now, and while part of my life is going great (I truly do have a lot to be thankful for), and the other half is going not so great, I am trying my hardest to see the “half full” side.

With that being said, however, today is just not a “half full” kind of day, so here’s a playlist I put together to soundtrack this weird funk I’m in.

This year on my blog, I’m sticking to my theme of music news and reviews, with a political piece here and there, and in addition to that, I am also going to push myself to write a personal storytime piece every other week, so stay tuned!

On Mistajam’s BBC Radio 1 show, Lana Del Rey premiered the title track from her soon-to- be-released LP, Lust For Life, featuring The Weeknd.

Lana and Abel have teamed up in the past with Prisoner,Stargirl Interlude, and Party Monster; the two just mesh well together. Their eerie, silky vocals complement each other in the best way, and they proved that to be true yet again with the 1960’s inspired Lust For Life.

Lust For Life serves a sensual vibe, with layered synths, and honey-like vocals. As someone who has been a fan of Del Rey since Born To Die, I can honestly say I am satisfied with the new release and cannot wait to hear what is yet to come.

In February, Del Rey released the first single from Lust For Life, Love, as well as its video. There has not been a confirmation yet on when her fifth LP will be released, but you can read her interview with Courtney Love for more details here.

Hello, it’s your friendly neighborhood music blogger here to show you my favorite artists of the month.

Tank and the Bangas

Videos of this group performing have been circulating all over the internet. The electric vibes given off by their lively and playful performances Their album Think Tank reminds me of spoken word, soul, jazz, and The Roots Classroom Instruments bit merged and spun into an outstanding web of story telling and musical brilliance. Winner of NPR’s Tiny Desk music competition, Tank and the Bangas is a great addition to almost any playlist. New Orleans based, hopefully this band will find its way to Chicago some way or another.

Cupcakke

Recently placed in the top 40 best rap albums of 2016 by the Rolling Stones above artists live Travis Scott, 2 Chainz, and J Cole, Chicago based rapper Cupcakke dropped and album this month titled Queen Elizabitch and I was pleasantly surprised. 19 year old Cupcakke is known for her sexually provocative lyrics and body positivity, but Queen Elizabitch was so much more than an album about sex or body image. The album opened up with Scraps which gives the listener a dose of Chicago realness as Cupcakke sets the bar for what has to be the one of the strongest debuts yet in 2017. Cupcakke describes what it’s like growing up with a deadbeat dad and the hardships that come when facing adversity while also setting the scene for today’s social climate, which for me, cemented her place as a rapper not to be toyed with or looked down on. Of course, this album still has songs quintessential to the Cupcakke we know and love. Her single, Cumshot, embodies the sexual freedom that we are familiar with in past songs like Spider Man Dick and Deepthroat. I can see this album becoming a staple of many Summer 2017 playlists.

Passion Pit

Passion Pit released an album that might have flown under the radar to a lot of fans. In agreement for retweeting a post that promotes funding for science and replying with your email, Passion Pit’s twitter account would personally email you the link to a download of the album, Tremendous Sea of Love. So far I have got to say that this album was exactly what I wanted from Passion Pit. I would not consider their new album their best work, but I will say that it is a fantastic album that has a good synergistic connection with their past works, seeming to give a quaint and slightly nostalgic nod to their roots, if their roots were a slightly stripped down version of the synth symphony we all went crazy for with Sleepyhead worth a listen, worth the tweeting, worth supporting science for.

Perfume Genius

While not in April, Perfume Genius has announced the release of their newest album No Shapealong with the single Slip Away on May 5th.Owner of their own genre, Perfume Genius continues to release a solid selection of new music. Songs like Queen and Hood have created such raw and powerful statements, it makes me wonder what ambient journey the tracks on this new album will take us to in May.

This week, Frank Ocean aired the third episode of “blonded RADIO,” on his Beats 1 show. On previous episodes of “blonded RADIO,” Ocean premiered his songs, “Chanel,” and “Slide,” featuring Calvin Harris and Migos. On this most recent episode, Ocean ended the show with his newest song, “Biking” featuring Jay Z and Tyler, the Creator.

Tyler, The Creator, who is now back on Twitter after a brief disappearance, tweeted his lyrics to his verse on “Biking,” on Saturday afternoon. Lana Del Rey Responded with, “who else’s lyrics could these be !” and I automatically had high hopes for this song.

I was not disappointed. I’ve always been a fan of Jay Z, an even bigger fan of Tyler, The Creator, and a disgustingly huge fan of Frank Ocean.

“Biking,” is a relatively mellow song, that for a reason I cannot explain, makes me feel the way I feel when I look at a painting by Vincent van Gogh.

Everyone interprets music in a different way, and every feeling is unique to the listener. And that’s the beauty in music.

With a slumbering sound and acoustic harmonies, “Biking” gives me a feeling of nostalgia for deep summer nights, and with summer just around the corner, this was great timing for Ocean to drop this hit.

Frank Ocean will always be one of my top favorite artists, and I strongly and whole heartily believe “Channel ORANGE,” and “Blonde,” are two of the greatest albums to have been produced of all time.

Ocean never lets us down with his music, and I can’t wait to hear what is yet to come from him.